Nanning, capital of Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, will strive to become a regional innovation center for ASEAN during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25), officials announced on Sept 23.

The final of the fourth Nanning International Elites Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition also took place on the same day.

The competition, first held in 2018, has attracted more than 1,200 talents from over 30 countries and regions such as the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia to showcase their innovative projects.

A number of 55 projects stood out from the total 516 projects from all over the world in this year's final. 

Tan Xiangguang, a member of the standing committee of the CPC Nanning municipal committee, said that Nanning is a frontier city for opening-up and establishing strong cooperation between China and ASEAN, and the city welcomes talents from both home and abroad for entrepreneurship.

Measures will be taken to lure more talents to Nanning such as holding more matchmaking events and it is expected that Nanning will attract two to three top-level talents including academicians as well as 100 domestic and overseas industrial leading talents by 2025.